Future-Bound
by macroVAC
Summary: The story of Mass Effect, while an excellent space opera, never took full advantage of the capabilities of its setting. Let's fix that, the stars will move, and the galaxy will tremble! No force, neither stagnant, galactic ascendancies nor ageless mechanical monstrosities will stand in the way of the future's implacable march… For better or worse.
1. The Quiet Revolutionist

_Edit: just fixing a few pronouns and commas_

_Something that concerned me about Mass Effect was the pervasive theme of fearing the unknown for no other reason than it is unknown, only accepting things when they became what society deemed to be familiar. The council species are terrified to let go of what they were to embrace the future (eg. Every single alien species having almost exactly human personalities, stigmas and looks, AIs needing… windows? Either cameras just don't exist in mass effect, or the geth are flying by the seat of their pants here.) AIs, extensive genetic engineering, new mass relays and systems, all of them, squandered because they are unfamiliar, based off the assumption that those are "playing god." So they sit, and almost revel in their stagnation. _

_No, despite its material advantages, a sedentary life leaves us unfulfilled. A feeling, I'm sure, that was derived from our survival; Long summers, mild winters, bountiful harvests, none of these things last forever. It is to the restless few, consumed and tormented by an everlasting itch for things remote, that we have always owed our future. This story will be a tribute to those adventurous souls and their eternal quest to peel back the veil and see what lies ahead. Every lab coat and notebook, a testament to our curiosity._

_It's time to go b__ig or go home, and with the reapers at the gates, going home is not an option._

_This will also be an outlet for me to nerd out about tech, so, if you're into the implications of technology in our near-future I think you'll enjoy this. I am an unabashed technological optimist, but I will admit some technology I see as possible in our future will cause equally as many problems as they solve, but the forward march cannot be stopped!_

_*I'm not one to be too particularly picky about pronouns, but to avoid the headache of having to spell it out, and to emphasize the foreign nature of the populous of the future, "e" will be used as a general-purpose pronoun for all sapients that do not follow traditional standards (e.g. AI and certain "metas" with the exception of the asari.) It will be declined like the more traditional pronouns (his/ hers/theirs= eis/eirs, him/her/them= em, etc.)_

_here are the ground rules that I'm going to try to hit for writing humanity:_

_-Information cannot locally travel faster than light_

_-Matter and energy are conserved_

_-Technology will change the nature of social issues_

_-A known science explanation for even the most fantastic elements must be provided._

_-Space is vast - the same challenges will have many different solutions_

_Please let me know if you guys have any questions about tech or plot. So, don't panic, grab your towels, and let's begin the endless march out to the stars!_

* * *

**Chapter 1: The quiet revolutionist**

**July 23rd, 2093**

**Von Braun Station, NASA module**

**Low Earth orbit**

An eye of billowy white encased in a shell of deep blue glared up at him as he flew high above the Gulf of Mexico. How serene it all looked never ceased to amaze him, the seemingly gentle motions of the clouds he knew full well to be 130 knot winds violently thrashing at the surrounding sea, barreling towards his Floridian home.

Such a storm would normally have cataclysmic effects on anything it touched, an avatar of nature's destructive capabilities, forcing all who dare to remain in its way to their knees, cowering in fear from Mother Earth's gaping maw.

He was worried, but it was not for fear of the hurricane, no, decades of work, planning and funding on the part of the U.S. Navy's Oceanographic Engineering Corps had gone into constructing vast chains of carefully placed artificial islands packed with as many sea oats and palm trees as possible. All this so that hurricanes would break their fury on these deserted isles instead of the now metropolitan southern and central Florida.

Many, himself included, saw irony in the fact that even the fiercest of these wrathful tempests were not stopped by any technological silver bullet as the past had hoped, but brought to heel by nothing more than sand, sweat, and strength of will.

His fears abated slightly as he pondered this, its implications not being lost on him. Something so monumental in its scale could be, and already had been, achieved.

The contentious debates over ownership of the islands in the United Nations building, years of collaboration with Dutch experts, and the subtle coaxing of funds and ships from the countries of the Caribbean were not forgotten either.

All those things seemed like petty squabbles compared to what he was about to ask Congress to agree to.

He swallowed hard, as his thoughts returned to the issue at hand. One that he dreaded more than any natural disaster- He was about to ask a joint congressional committee to fund what had been a childhood dream of his. He had been practicing for weeks, readying himself for any question that could be thrown at him, time that he desperately needed too.

He was an engineer first and foremost, despite his leadership position, he could only barely manage to keep it together when he publicly spoke. Though he was told he still was well-spoken, it was going to take a miracle to convince experienced politicians to commit to the ludicrous idea he was pushing for.

The magnetic induction neural interfaces (MINIs) that had taken the world by storm decades ago could only provide the facts directly to someone's mind, convincing that person still required a personal touch. Especially in this case, as the numbers for this project did not look good to any, save for other engineers, let alone politicians.

He cast a nervous glanced upward, pulling up the MINI's clock and felt his stomach drop. A mere five hours until he would be answering questions in Washington! An hour before his short flight to the recently finished Carl Sagan magnetic-suspension space ring and an hours long ride down one of the tapered, aggregated diamond nanorod cables strung down from the ring to D.C.

He hardly noticed when the room's smart-material walls subtly adjusted the color and lighting to a warmer, more comfortable hue and intensity.

Given the stressfulness of his job, he had long since learned to stop jumping at the change when they did this, the sound of liquid pouring into a sealed container indicated that the same programs had deemed his stress level high enough to suggest that he would want a calming chamomile tea.

He didn't want to guess who programmed them to learn this, nor how they did, but he couldn't fault them for being right 99.9% of the time, he did actually want chamomile tea. Naturally, immediately after he thought this, he received a neural advertisement for various herbal tea blends, which he angrily batted out from his head.

It indicated that he was low on tea, but he was a traditionalist, and always felt this to be a breach of privacy, even if only the networks of artificial neurons that composed his electronic shadows knew about his stress-management habits. It's why he opted for tea rather than just having his MINI suppress his sympathetic nervous system.

Grabbing the container, he sat down again only to be greeted with the familiar neural stimulation that indicated a call request. He merely had to think about answering for it to pick up.

Quickly shimmering into existence, a tall figure dressed in a well-cut blue coat and perfectly fitted dress-pants was now sitting in a chair opposite his desk, legs casually crossed and a smile on his face. E* was slightly transparent, and with a noticeable aura around em, denoting the figure as only a projection of his optic implants.

"Well shoot Ike, you're looking a little worse for wear." The figure noted.

E was right of course, he had yet to shave and probably had dark circles under his eyes from staring at his notes for half the time he should be sleeping. Even for a genetically engineered "meta" like he was, he got very little sleep. Though, he wasn't about to admit it.

"Easy for you to say, it's not like you have to worry about your appearance anyway." Ike shot back.

The figure raised eis eyebrows in amusement. "And you never had to pass a Turing test. Seriously, do you know how stressful it is for a transophont to wait those few seconds for a reply, wondering if you were just a bit too in depth with your previous answer?"

Shaking eis head, the figure continued "Anyway, I didn't just come to commiserate, just got the few, final projections done for the minimum investment, auto-generated charts out to 50 years are ready to go, figured you would want to have a look."

Nodding, he took a sip from the container and picked up his data pad and stylus, a format that never seemed to go out of style. The figure merely pointed at it and, instantaneously, the charts appeared on the pad. He began sorting through all the information. There was a lot to go through, he could've had it directly transmitted to his brain, but he felt taking the time to read it conveyed a better understanding. That, and he was still uncomfortable with machines messing with his brain, even if they were specifically tailored to do just that.

Reading didn't take long; he was grateful to his mods for the increase in myelin sheath and blood vessel density speeding up his perception times. Though, he couldn't help the 'o' that his mouth formed in awe at the numbers. He already knew many of them well, still they were staggering.

Noticing eis slack-jawed colleague, the figure added "And they thought the L5 project was big… I don't imagine their reaction being much better than yours is now."

"That was a few 38-kilometer-long rotating tubes Dan, this… We're talking about cannibalizing a whole planet here! In 50 years, Mercury could be nothing but solar panels, O'Neil cylinder components and one ludicrously big telescope!"

"You weren't this nervous about the Friedmann telescope before. You know just as well as I do that there is always going to be a scale that the human brain just stops entertaining even the notion of, as too big, too grandiose, too… beyond yourselves. Yet, inch by inch, you take baby steps forward, slow and uncertain, until you find yourselves at the welcome mat of the very place you could scarcely even conceive of beforehand. This is one of those places, you're already there, all you have to do is convince them to knock on the door." Dan countered

Ike looked skeptically at em, but otherwise said nothing, so e continued. "Hell, only a half century of space industrialization, and already a ticket to space only costs as much as an old commuter train ticket does! Neumann drones take care of most maintenance and construction, sophonts don't even need to be involved past the start of the project! Don't doubt yourself, you are ready for this."

"I know." Said Ike, "It's just not what I had really expected for our first foray into space exploitation to look like, especially when we're only just getting industry going in the belt."

"Why do one thing at a time when you have machines that enable you to do 10 things at once? Also, those drone ship factories need power and lots of it."

"Just the same, none of that's going to come cheap and you know it. The only reason why I think this has even got a shot at working is that it's going to make its money back in fuel savings… Eventually." Ike held up the pad to Dan. "I think they'll like these new numbers too; they're promising."

"Well, I'm glad you see it that way. Anyway, I'll let you go, don't want you to be late for the hearing, see you there." Ike only just had time to get out a 'see ya' before Dan's image faded from existence. Looking once again at the time, he decided that he should be heading to the shuttle terminal.

* * *

Ike was, once again, impatient. Only this time, he wasn't surrounded by the smart walls and gently curved, rotating floors of Von Braun station, but the Victorian mahogany and marble of the US capitol building.

The vast hall was abuzz with chatter of both the myriad of reporters and journalists as well as the politicians. They moved like bees, mingling with the movers and shakers of the American political system.

For his part, he was sat at a central table looking at the imposing cascade of wood that was the bench for the politicians. Next to him was a fair-sized box he knew to contain the utility fog by which the figures would be made visible to the gathered crowd, and the vehicle for Dan's appearance. People were only just beginning to find their seats when the box began to dispense its microscopic, mechanical cargo.

Ike watched in mild amusement as the form of his artificial colleague began to be assembled by the millions of small machine 'foglets' right before his eyes. Others formed a neat cube in between his table and the bench.

Everyone was seated and the chatter was quieting by the time the foglets had finished their color diagnostics, and the vaguely anthropomorphic shape had become Dan. Not ten seconds later, the presiding senator spoke, "This committee shall come to order. I would like to welcome NASA associate director Dr. Isaac Bostrom and NASA administrative AI Daneel Olivaw to the sub-committee for Space Exploitation this morning…"

The senator, whose nameplate indicated her as Chairwoman Jane Serrano, continued in a professional deadpan about the credentials of the two seated in front of her, and the purpose of the hearing. Ike had tuned out this part, waiting for the actual questions to start being asked.

With his enhanced perception speeds, this was like waiting for paint to dry for Ike. After what felt like an eternity, Dan gave him a nudge indicating that it was time. After a quick opening statement from Dan detailing the basics of the project it was Ike's turn to fight for his ambitions.

His first verbal sparing partner was a gruff 107-year-old ex-marine who didn't look a day over 30, a small radiator panel ran along the sagittal sulcus of the Rhode Island senator by the name of Martin Pastore. He had a reputation for being blunt and honest and his question and phrasing reflected it perfectly. "Is there anything in this project that in any way relates to the security of the nation?"

Instantly Ike felt hadn't prepared enough, he wasn't expecting such a question, he thought it was obvious what the advantages of the Friedmann telescope were, and military and security applications weren't one of them. He decided to go the professional answer. "No sir; I don't believe so."

"Nothing at all?"

Ike tried to fight the scowl he could feel forming on his face and, trying to hide his begrudging acceptance, he repeated "Nothing at all."

He could've sworn he saw a smirk on the senator's face as he continued his prodding. "It has no value in that respect?"

Dan shot him a nervous glance, this was a loosing battle, and Ike needed to change the subject fast, so he relied on the one thing he had going for him in this instance, his passion. "It has only to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture and knowledge, it has to do with these things… It has nothing to do with defense, I'm sorry."

The senator sat back in his chair, smirk instantly fading, but he wasn't done yet. "Don't be sorry for it, but is there anything in this project that would give us and our allies a competitive edge over those that wish us harm?"

"No, this has to do with the things we venerate and honor in this society. It has to do with: are we good painters, great sculptors, talented poets? This has nothing to do with directly defending the nation except to help make it worth defending!"

This final, zealous remark finally shut the senator up with a meek, "That is all." Fighting back the giddiness that came from this first, small, victory Ike readied himself for the next barrage of questions.

The next verbal combatant was a young Ohio representative who asked. "Is there any necessity for pushing to complete this telescope by 2143?" Instantly the utility fog began forming the figures out to 50 years in the air between them.

He breathed a sigh of relief; he had prepared for this one. "I regard this like planting a tree, it may take 50 years to grow and that could be used as an excuse for procrastination. But that's all the more reason to start it sooner, otherwise it will never happen. We need to know what's out there, and with this telescope, we can directly image details of far off planets in a multitude of spectra…"

Dan smiled and nodded along; e was liking where this hearing was going. Ike continued to bat off questions from the assembled congressmen for six hours, and by the end, e felt he had said all there was to say.

Through preparation and zeal, they had given the project the best chance of success they could have when the politicking finally ended. All that was left was to see if it would be enough for the appropriations committee to approve, but that was one for the journalists.

* * *

The next day, now back on the kilometer-long spire and toroid that was Von Braun station, Ike sat enjoying a beer, comfortable in the knowledge that the anti-intoxicant in his morning auto-pill would keep him sober. He was again greeted with the sympathetic nervous stimulation that indicated a call, again from Dan.

He shimmered into existence, once again, with his legs casually crossed, but this time with an ear-to-ear grin. "Check this out." E said and pulled up a compilation of several freelance reporter's with high-quality but inexpensive recorder drones. All of them had a headline with something to the effect of 'house expected to approve funding for Friedmann Mega-Telescope'

Now smiling just as wide as Dan was, Ike couldn't resist thrusting his fist in the air as Dan half yelled. "We did it!" Ike simply nodded along as e continued. "Now, we get to see what's out there."

Ike sobered a little and added. "Let's just hope we like what we see…"

* * *

_Sorry that these beginning chapters will probably be kind of boring as I set the stage. I promise it won't be much longer until we get into Mass Effect._

_I would like to point out that these will take a while, this chapter took me nearly two months to research, and trim off my worst excesses of technical speak. So, it might be a while before the next one._

_I also won't be giving a perspective of how an AI thinks, as I am not a transophont, and an intelligence like Daneel would be leaps and bounds ahead of anything in even my most far-flung dreams. E is what I'll refer to as an S1 intelligence (singularity 1, capable of making improvements to emself.) I also didn't want to give the impression that there's only one level of artificial intelligence, there's everything from the non-sapient shadows to the singularity level of Dan._

_I might also be publishing a codex to go alongside this with the nitty-gritty about, and current presence of, the technologies used, as well as a timeline. Let me know if you guys would like that._

_In the meantime, I'll just continue solving reversing entropy without the net expenditure of energy_

_._

_._

_./_

_There is, as yet, insufficient data for a meaningful answer_

_Collecting additional data_

_macroVAC: ~$ Signing off_


	2. A Dreamer's Vigil

_Edit: It's always right after I post these I find that one mistake in the pronouns or an omitted article, they're so easily missed even in thorough proof-reading!_

_I'm genuinely shocked and extremely grateful for all the positive support this story has already garnered!_

_I also want to try something, after every chapter there will be a two section AN. The first will be an aggregate of my personal thoughts on the technologies and principals discussed and how I see their implementation in the future and the impact on our society. The second section will be discussions of things I want audience input on, there will only be minor spoilers for future chapters. If you want to remain totally spoiler-free, avoid these. They will be clearly marked._

_About the poll on my profile, I should specify that when it gets to 75 yes votes, I'll start work on the timeline/ codex, should be a fun chance to give some practice to my scientific as well as practical critical thinking capabilities._

_There will probably be about two more chapters before we get into the meat and potatoes of mass effect._

_I should also mention that there will be no Eezo in sol, no prothean ruins, not even the Charon relay. FTL is not a requisite for thorough and practical colonization of the stars, and that we wouldn't attempt to do so until we had such technology is downright absurd. I dislike stories that say that we would be content to lounge about Sol until the year 3000 in the absence of such a technology. I see Bracewell and/or Von Neumann expeditionary probes being sent out no later than 2075. Manned, or more accurately, crewed, follow up missions no later than 2150._

_*Allison Energy will be the (fictional) scientific name for dark energy, after a century of research, it was finally deemed known enough to replace the traditional moniker of 'dark.' It is named for physicist Dr. Claire Allison who spearheaded much of the research into its nature. - (Expect extensive discussion of this, as there is, in no way, a guarantee that we will ever understand dark energy or even understand if it truly is energy, but since mass effect loves it's Eezo, I'll have to take a stab at it to the best of my, admittedly lacking, theoretical physics capabilities. I highly recommend doing your own reading on this, as it is possibly the single most fascinating scientific mystery of our time.)_

_**Chimeric, when used in a genetic sense, means a single organism composed of two or more sets of DNA. This either originates from altered and/or merged zygotes, or genetic engineering (usually in reference to CRISPR genetic editing and its auxiliary components.)_

_*** R. will be an honorific and referential denotation of someone's status as an artificial intelligence, R standing for "robot or robotic." It will be used in the place of Mr./Mrs. (This is based off Asimov's stellar "Robots" series, particularly "Caves of Steel," one of my all-time favorites.)_

_**** Toposophic— anything having to do with theoretical problems with enhancing one's own mental potential, though enhancement of intelligence is usually subtle and incremental in the world of Future-Bound, there is a point of diminishing returns where further augmentations result in no qualitative effect. Instead, mental restructuring must occur, as the formatting of the information in a human brain can only be so efficient. Therefore, despite having the same nurture as an organic human (a singularity-level AI will have read about Isaac Newton to get a grasp of Newtonian physics, or Einstein to understand special relativity,) ey would be of a fundamentally different nature. Early Ais would be characterized by being extremely charismatic, but almost autistic in eir comprehension of our comparatively minimal brain capacity. _

_Concepts that are totally alien to us would be intuitive to em, ey would have difficulty understanding where that defining line of what makes sense to us is. There are ways for baseline, organic humans to become an S1 in an extremely lengthy and arduous process known as ascending. However, despite maintaining continuity of identity, the values and views held by ascended individuals before and after ascension are no more alike than a newborn's outlook on life is to an adult's. (This is an actual concept in epistemology, first put forward by Stanisław Lem, A polish author in his book, Golem XIV in 1981. I did more reading into the nature of artificial intelligence at the request of TheRangerBoy and found this particular topic to be of interest._)

_***** The offshoots of humanity, as well as their AI creations and colleagues are too diverse a subset to be referred to generally as humans, for this reason, any sapient (or above) AI or organism that either originates from, or can trace eir lineage to Earth will be referred to as a Terragen._

_I think that covers about everything I wanted to say beforehand, so, let's see what the future will send our way!_

* * *

**Chapter 2: A Dreamer's Vigil**

**March 19th, 178 PI (2147 AD)**

**Frank Borman Cylinders, Habitation module 2**

**Earth-Moon Lagrange point (L5)**

Ike awoke naturally, his mind clearing rapidly as the carefully monitored and regulated brainwaves for sleep faded. His MINI replacing them with those associated with wakefulness in his mind. He began to stir, careful not to wake his wife who was not supposed to be up until an hour later.

He quickly washed up and emerged into the kitchen with his oral hygiene mouthguard still in its namesake. The whirring of small servos could be heard as it scrubbed his mouth and sent any irregularities to dedicated programs who identified if there was a need for treatment, but there never was. He almost chuckled at remembering the old ritual of brushing them by hand.

He was happy to find breakfast already hot and served, eggs benedict, turkey bacon and black coffee, exactly what he was craving!

He sat down to enjoy his meal, blissfully unaware that the components of the food had actually been automatically ordered from three different places on the habitat. Each seamlessly coordinating their deliveries via drones to arrive all at once.

With his last bite of food, he swallowed his morning smart-pill and headed for his in-home office where he now worked most days.

When he sat down, he finally looked at his messages to find something definitely disconcerting, several messages from Dan each merely titled; "Found them!" the first came at three in the morning, and each one following it, spaced at half hour intervals. Dan was persistent, if less than… concerned with the needs of those around em.

Opening the most recent message, its contents were no less vague, saying "Head to the observatory ASAP, we found something big!" The last time he'd received a message like this though, was a year ago with the exact measuring of the acceleration caused by Allison energy*. He knew of a few things that this "something" could be, but he could hardly believe any of them himself.

His mind raced with possibilities. He practically snapped his front door off its hinges in an attempt to make his way outside to his smart mag-car. The moment he reached it, with its route already plotted, the car levitated up on the cylinder's magnetic field and raced off to the observatory autonomously, leaving Ike to his thoughts.

There were very few things that would rile up Dan to this degree, even fewer could be proven definitively without extensive observation. That only left him with more questions though. Which of them had the Friedmann 'Hyperscope' found?

He was broken from his train of thought as he passed by the administrative center for the L5 habitats. Out front were protestors with everything from gills to angel wings. There was even the shudder-inducing sight of… _cat ears_. Ike didn't want to read too much into it.

One exceptionally large individual, who couldn't have been much less than ten feet tall, was holding a sign that read "stop morph employment discrimination." Ike thought it was somewhat ridiculous, seeing as most non-integral modifications could be changed back and forth without too much expense or issue. CRISPR therapies were now dirt cheap these days with the complete mapping of genotype to phenotype expression and mass production of the CAS-9 editing tool as well as other chemicals necessary for the "prime editing" methods. The mechanization of the medical profession also made surgical alterations equally as affordable.

Not that there was too much for an unascended human to do in terms of employment. Machines took care of most of the heavy lifting in the day to day lives of the citizens. Most only worked for a sense of purpose, or entertainment, there were certainly worse things people could be doing in eir free time.

He was not a human chauvinist though; he could see why many of these chimeric** individuals incorporated eir tweaks as part of eir identity. still, it was still eir choice.

He himself was heavily chimeric under the surface, increased muscle density, artificial optic nerves and receptors, telomerase reactivation therapy, even his eye and hair color were both artificially steel grey and dark brown respectively. He never felt the urge to change far from the baseline in his 136 years of life though.

He pushed these thoughts from his mind as the capitol building disappeared behind one of the habitat's larger constructions. From there, it wasn't much longer until he was at the hyperscope's data integration center.

Marching through the door, he entered the large, stark-white atrium with the hyperscope logo projected via Optically phased arrays (OPAs) in the center of the room. He heard a voice. "Welcome Doctor Bostrom, R.*** Olivaw has requested that you meet with em- "The facility's sub-sapient AI greeted, but was cut off by Ike. "Thank you, Virgil, and I know, e's only been pestering me about it since three in the morning!"

"I am deeply sorry to hear that doctor. I can let em know of your displeasure if you like." Virgil responded in eis algorithmically generated, soothing voice.

"No, it's fine, Dan may not be the most considerate of others, but e means well. E's got to have eis reasons for this."

Virgil merely stated "acknowledged, I will refrain from asking that in the future." and let him continue his walk through the large atrium of the building.

He eventually came to the sliding doors of the control room. Stepping inside, Ike saw his colleague and long-time friend in a holographic form produced by a bank of OPA emitters along one of the walls. E was always listening and knew Ike just entered the room, still, after seventy-five years trying to break down the toposophic**** barrier, e finally had the courtesy to at least have eis projection turn around and nod to acknowledge Ike's presence.

"Just because you're not NASA's director any more doesn't mean you get to sleep in Ike." E prodded, though e curled eis mouth into a smile Dan programmed in such a way as to indicate the statement as a joke. "You could've just used that fancy telepresence module of yours, would've saved us both a lot of time."

"You're not usually one to exaggerate. Get over-hyped? Maybe, but exaggerate? No. Figured whatever it is that's got you so riled up; I'd want to see with my own two eyes." Ike said.

"I'll never understand your obsession with physical presence… Either way, you're here now. Just, please… Don't freak out."

E turned to a monitor on the wall and pulled up an image dated March 19th, 178PI, 1:20 AM GMT. "This image was pure luck when we captured it. The hyperscope was only instructed to turn its gamma ray detector network on the snake nebula as a linked calibration test for its visual light counterpart. We weren't actually expecting to pick up anything…"

The image zoomed into a single bright point in a sea of darker, background colors.

"I checked and confirmed, no known pulsars, black holes, or anything really in that region of space… So, I believed it was a glitch, the hyperscope's AI might've had an alignment error. The network is incredibly temperamental with the precision needed for accurate data collation being in the nanometers for each and every satellite in the network after all."

E pulled up another image, this time without the bright point, timestamped 1:50 AM GMT and continued.

"I figured that this more or less confirmed that it was an error, though I didn't find any evidence of one when I was combing through the individual satellite alignment data. So, just to be sure I took another image, and boy, I'm glad I did."

This time the monitor had another image displayed, timestamped 2:32 AM GMT. The bright flare of gamma rays was back in view.

"I don't think I need to say how puzzling this was to me at the time, so I tried the visible spectrum, this was a linked test after all."

E then pulled up the companion visual light image, also timestamped 2:32 AM GMT. It then zoomed in on where the gamma ray burst had originated from.

On the monitor in front of Ike that morning were the six most important pixels in the course of Earth's history.

The first was a point of bright, radiant blue amongst the black background of the snake nebula. The next five were a successively darker shade of grey, until it matched its dark, neighboring pixels.

Ike was dumbfounded, his heart nearly beat out of his chest, and his mind was working at the speed of light. Discounting the possibility of some misalignment of the hyperscope, which Dan had thoroughly tested, there was only one thing those pixels could be; a structure that was not of Terran origin. Slowly overcoming his speechlessness, he finally spoke. "That… that can't be what I think it is... can it?"

"Double and triple checked, that's exactly what you think it is. It's sure as hell not anything natural. No way something natural is that small and putting out that much energy."

"This changes everythi-." He started to mutter, but was cut off by Dan.

"I'm not done either, just in case you weren't blown away by that, I conducted a little search about a light month in radius from that object, see for yourself." Eis holographic figure pointed to the screen, it instantly zoomed over to another point on the image. He nearly had his eyeballs pop out of their sockets in shock, on the screen was a 21-pixel-long leviathan structure, appearing to be splayed out into two separate sections, originating from one central band.

Ike did the math in his head for a moment before exclaiming, "that can't be much less than 50 kilometers. That's longer than our largest O'Neil cylinder!"

"Close, I think it's about 45 kilometers, give or take a few. It's convenient that you should mention those cylinders too, because that's exactly what I think it is."

"How do you figure?"

"Take a look."

The monitor transitioned to another image, showing the object as one central line of pixels and two rapidly diminishing leaves ending before the middle pixels did.

"It rotates and is broken up into at least six sections. Not quite conventional, but still, there's not really much else I could think of that has those properties. Though, this is an alien society with foreign technologies and cultures, so absolutely nothing can be assumed. Its purpose could be far beyond even our wildest imaginations." E commented

By now, Ike's brain was starting to go numb, just moments ago he had learned that the inhabitants of Sol were only one of at least two technological civilizations in the galaxy, not much could top that.

"Picked your jaw up off the floor yet?" E asked rhetorically, "because that's still not all."

Dan then showed the first two images along with a third taken some time afterwards. The playing of the images like a slideshow made Ike pick up on something that he hadn't before; a single, bright streak appearing to move rapidly between the images.

"I ran the math, these images took 40 minutes to collect the light necessary for the capture, and even if whatever is making that streak was moving exactly perpendicular to the hyperscope, it still would have had to have traveled approximately 1500 light minutes between the start and finish of each capture… I take it that you understand what this means."

_Dear God… Einstein must be rolling in his grave. _Ike thought

This time his stupor lasted a full ten seconds of almost incoherent babbling before answering "Faster than light travel… In our frame of reference, no less!"

"I'm still trying to figure out how this is working without utterly shattering causality. For all I know, these aliens may be so advanced that they can simply throw special relativity to the wind. It may just be that special relativity is utterly wrong in general."

"Before we go any further, I have to ask, would it make this faster if I simply gave up and went mad now, or do you have any other reality shattering revelations to dump on me?"

Dan appeared to think for a second, merely out of courtesy, before finally replying, "nope, I think that about covers it."

"How are we going to tell the people? These images are public domain, we can't keep them out of the hands of the press forever. I'll bet that there are at least a hundred different conspiracy theorists who have virtual agents comb every one of our images."

"Three hundred and forty-seven actually, and yes we need to get this done ASAP. According to the Solar Confederacy, once we confirm a signal of any kind from an extraterrestrial intelligence, we should notify other observatories for them to independently confirm this signal, but there's not a snowball's chance of anything but the hyperscope being able to see that."

Ike pondered this for a second before saying "I guess that leaves the government, but which one? The hyperscope was a joint venture between NASA and the ESA after all."

"Why not all of them?"

"Exactly my thoughts, leave this one to the politicians. This is about ten miles above my paygrade."

"I can't wait to see how they'll handle this, I've already got some predictive models going, I wonder which, if any, are right."

"Would you stop referring to society as something to be studied? Really gets on some people's nerves."

"What do you think sociologists do for a living? Besides, I mean, I find you guys interesting. Not like those Abio pricks. It's a good thing most of 'em left for Alpha Centauri, would've thrown those synth-supremacist AI's out myself if they hadn't."

"Alright, fair, just don't bring it up in polite conversation."

"You've known me for nearly a century now! You should be used to this. Plus, we've got more important things to do than debate what I research in my free time."

Ike nodded and said "I wonder what they'll do… We have so little to go off, I can't imagine them trying a message until we know more."

Dan's projected avatar assumed a look of surprise "Really? I figured they'd want to get that message away ASAP. There's only so long we can remain undetected before we finally are found out, you can't really hide a whole civilization in space. So when we are found, be it by their initiative or our own, we'll have to explain every second we delayed between us finding them and sending them a 'hello.'"

"Getting to know enough about them to understand even how TO say hello would definitely constitute a reason to hold off on saying Hi."

"It's not like they're expecting a hand-written note. All we'd need to do is prove that we're intelligent, maybe a repeating sequence of the first 20 digits of pi with maybe the tenth through the fifteenth digits missing. They send back the missing digits, and we'll both know whoever we're dealing with is intelligent."

"What if we don't want them to know we're intelligent? We don't know what we're dealing with, they could have a cultural obsession with purging whoever they view as a lesser species!"

"I can't discount that as a possibility, but if there are at least two species within seven hundred light years of each other, there's bound to be exponentially more out there who would see that and take moral issue with it. You can't hide what you've done in space, it's more likely they'd have a beacon that broadcasted a warning to keep well away from their space. That could be what the first strange structure is. Also, there's no guarantee that they don't already know about us, it's arrogant to assume that we're the only ones with an obscenely big telescope."

"I'm still not sold, isn't it odd that there's a spacefaring civilization so close to us? We would see the infrared light of any Dyson swarms they built, plain as day, and a single habitat and a strange glow-y structure definitely doesn't constitute an entire civilization."

"We do know they have faster than light travel, it's possible that they simply 'outran' the light from such structures. Maybe they worship stars and view any artificial, heliocentric structures as heretical? It's also possible that the strange glowing structure is a form of beacon."

Ike pointed and exclaimed "Exactly my point! We don't have a clue as to how these aliens operate. Think for a moment, we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball some ninety-two million miles away and view this all to be completely normal! That fact alone should give an insight into how skewed our perspective tends to be."

E smirked for a carefully timed moment before adding "It could just be that they do know about us, and when we make contact, they'll charge us four and a half billion years in dues for 'planetary protection.' Then we'll be wishing for that invasion fleet to just put us out of our misery!"

He chuckled at the joke but was otherwise disquieted at how real a possibility the idea dan had just put forward actually was.

**March 26th, 178 PI (2147 AD)**

**Solar Confederation building**

**New York City, New York**

He looked out at the ring of signs and protestors that had gathered around the large edifice that was the Solar Confederation building and was genuinely surprised. Most everyone on Earth had written the spiritual successor to the UN off as little more relic, more than a century past its usefulness. There had not been much need for international litigation and stabilization since the fusion revolution destroyed most of the middle eastern nations' economies. He never imagined that the archaic congregation would ever play such a pivotal role in Terragen***** history ever again.

New York's Guardianet AI already had well over double the normal crime-prevention deployments in these past four days than was normal in a month. The synth-sects that monitored and fed back information to the central Transapient AI were being run ragged and the modified network of utility fog that acted as the police was beginning to show signs of strain, full tenths of a second slower than usual!

The marvel of social engineering that was the Guardianet was being taxed in the extreme to maintain public order in the streets in one of the largest cities on Earth. Four days ago, it was first decided in France that the people should know of the new status of the Terragens as one of possibly many intelligent species in the universe. Once it was leaked to the French people, there was no stopping it, the news spread like wildfire and within minutes of the announcement, AI residents everywhere from Mexico City to the independent, floating Venus colony, Eros were writing to eir leaders about eir personal desire for action to be taken.

It didn't take much longer for an emergency session of the confederation to be called, and now, a week from when the Terragens learned they weren't alone, they deliberated on how to handle this recent turn of events. Who better to act as scientific representative than the first two individuals to identify the presence of extraterrestrial life?

In the week between the first sighting, and the hearing, the hyperscope diligently combed the galaxy for further gamma-ray anomalies similar to the "Hydra" and "Jörmungandr" objects as they were now known. the hyperscope had found no fewer than fifteen similar Hydra-type objects, scattered across the galaxy. They appeared to mostly be clustered within slightly less than two thousand light years of sol. Interestingly, there was a break in the concentration of the objects for about 50,000 light years before the anomalies began to reoccur, whether this was due to the small sample size or some anomalous property of that space, no one could yet guess.

This also led to the next earthshaking revelation. It was discovered that one of the fifteen objects was in a system with a planet possessing an observable biosphere! Spectroscopy indicated an abnormally high concentration of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide. When the visual telescope was trained on the planet, large, unnaturally reflective areas and high densities of carbon dioxide were almost immediately visible. To many, this could only mean one thing; an extraterrestrial city. Most likely a colony, as it was not even at the level of Earth when it came to area covered by cities. Direct colonization and terraforming of another planet is generally considered wildly impractical and wasteful by the Terragens. Opting for terraforming over orbital habitats has been taken to mean that these aliens were immensely wealthy and probably still had organic members of their society.

The purpose of the strange Hydra objects, now known to be in the form of a tuning fork, was, as yet, unknown. Though, they were generally thought to be a beacon of some sort. Some theorized that they could possibly be denoting territory, or a greeting, though no discernable message has been divined. Untold millions of intelligences were putting their collective cryptographical skills to work on solving the meaning of the semi-regular gamma-ray flashes. The objects were seen to have anomalous space-time expansion effects, leading many to believe that these objects assist in the alien's magical FTL capabilities. Past that, nothing was known.

_And now they want to say hello without even the slightest clue as to who the scary, reality-bending aliens even are?! _Ike thought. He was just as excited as the next guy to meet E.T., but there were far too many unknowns to feel comfortable

"You almost look like you're sad about possibly talking to extraterrestrial intelligence." He heard a familiar voice lightheartedly call from behind him.

Dan was once again being projected by the building's OPA system, arms folded, leaning against the back wall near one of the many oil paintings of the extravagantly decorated lobby.

"I'm still not sure what the confederacy council wanted from us; we knew nothing that they didn't already. It seemed like they already had their mind set on sending them a message anyway." Ike commented while his head sunk low and his gaze dropped to the floor.

"Look, I agree with you, there are far too many unknowns to be absolutely certain of a favorable outcome, but it's more than likely to be of tremendous benefit to us. Think what we could accomplish with their clarketech-style gadgets! While they haven't sent us a message, they don't appear to be trying to hide either, it's more than likely that their intentions aren't hostile."

The floor continued to be the sole object of his attention, while he slightly nodded his head. "I'm under no illusions that we would inevitably be forced to say hello with the Dyson swarming of Sol, but… I don't know. I just feel like there's something wrong in the galaxy, something big, even sinister, and no one's telling us what it is."

"No" Said Dan, "That's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the universe has that"

He rolled his eyes and tried to fight back a grin. "For all our sakes, I hope you're right. Otherwise, we'll know better some 700 years from now when they get the message and hightail it here."

* * *

_I did the math on the resolution required myself. The snake nebula (I'm taking this to be the serpent nebula, as no such nebula is known to exist) is around 650 light years distant, and a mass relay is about 3-5 kilometers high, and 15 kilometers long. Plugging and chugging, I got the minimum resolution required to see that as a single pixel was about 4.967E-9 arcseconds. To Identify it as an alien structure I guessed you'd need about 5-14, so I lowballed the hyperscope resolution value to about 7.5E-10 arcseconds. If there are any astronomers out there who know better, please let me know. _

_And yes, I'm aware how ridiculous a resolution in the nano arcsecond range is and how long of a light exposure you would need to capture something as small as a mass relay from that distance, but they didn't break down mercury into mirrors and solar panels for nothing!_

_Anyway, the idea for this chapter is how I see us learning that we aren't alone in the universe. The fact of the matter being that, if there is intelligent life out there right now, they are likely far more advanced than we could even dream of at the moment. They would also be easily visible, provided the light had time to reach us._

_As Mass Effect accurately states, there is no stealth in space. Hiding something even as little as a ship is neigh on impossible, the Normandy, for all its IES shenanigans and even assuming it could hide the massive gravity well that's its primary means of sub light AND somehow cool down all the interstellar hydrogen gas that it hits along the way, it would only have a minimal profile to passive IR detectors and radar. _

_(TheRangerBoy Pointed out that these would be enough in literally every case but the Normandy's as a reason for the stealth system's effectiveness. I'll concede that, also you should check him out, he's pretty clever.)_

_Hiding an entire society that expends so much energy that interstellar travel is a trivial energy expense though? Well, that's just fantasy._

_We'll see them long before they see us, and it'll be our job not to drop the ball on first contact. With space's nearly infinite resources, there are very few material reasons to wage an interstellar war. Even if there was a reason, the timescales involved with slower than light travel would make such a war effort impractical without ridiculous energy expenditure. Therefore, I see no reason why not to announce our presence once we see them._

_I also aimed to highlight something ME never really gives us a good idea about, the day-to-day lives of the denizens of this (or more accurately these) future societies. Things like how people wake up in the morning. Alarm clocks and coffee are so last century. What is the future of crime? No more bubbly Japanese thieves when they've got an S2 level intelligence determining their intentions and planning accordingly the moment they set foot outside._

_Many people forget that the future will be just as much a product of sociologists and psychologists as any engineer or physicist. I'll try to emphasize this._

_Also, do I even need to begin to describe how idiotic the Sudham-Wolcott Genetic Heritage Act is? To just abandon advanced genetic manipulation has got to be among the stupidest things I have ever heard. A lot of people forget when talking about advancements in the future is that one of the most important things we can improve upon is ourselves. _

_We can be stronger and more durable than a Krogan, think quicker than even the fastest Salarian and have lifespans that would make an Asari matriarch look like an infant by comparison. All we need to do is let go of the notion of there being something inviolable about the baseline human._

* * *

**_MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD_**

_I noticed this got put into an alternate first contact war community. I don't have any intention of this solar confederacy fighting the council because if those bozos went up against a true Kardashev 2 civilization like this version of the inhabitants of sol are becoming, well… they'd get stomped, **hard**. I have no intention of letting this be a stomp fic, the reapers are the true enemy here, and they will be buffed accordingly, though, if you want to see what happens when these guys flex their muscles, let me know._

_I have a few ideas, but in general you don't want to tangle with a K2. A few fringe factions? Maybe, but a whole civilization? Yeah, no, they're not going to pull their punches, nor should you expect them to._

_ A K2 is not going to be one homogenous civilization either, some factions may have a 'victory at all costs' mindset who wouldn't care at all if each of the opposing faction's worlds and space habitats were consumed in nanites or hellfire. Some, obviously, would take moral issue with this and try for a more manipulative approach._

_ When a society's existence is threatened, there can be no half-measures. This is a universal truth that even the most upstanding of human cultures would understand. With no holds barred, they'd make the krogan rebellions look like a preschool slap-fight. Nicoll-Dyson beams don't give the chance for future generations to resent you._

_Anyway, continuing to solve the reversal entropy without the net expenditure of energy!_

_._

_._

_./_

_There is, as yet, insufficient data for a meaningful answer_

_Collecting additional data_

_macroVAC: ~$ Signing off_


	3. Export: Earth

_Hello again, sorry about the wait! The research and editing process in these is testing my patience, but I will bring the most scientifically accurate story I possibly can to the table! Even if it means I have to rewrite whole sections that I love but don't progress the plot. It's always a mood-killer, and this chapter had more than a few of those, it even still has one that was just too cool for me to leave out (I'm sure you can tell what it is when you get to it.) I'm seriously considering posting the cut content, just because those are so enjoyable to write. On another note, the technical information contained in this chapter and future chapters was getting a little extreme, I want to provide as much information as I can. Part because it's fun and relaxing for me to drone on about science in general, and part because I want you guys to know I'm not just pulling these terms, concepts and technologies out of my rear vacuum tube. This could be the future you wake up to in a few decades!_

_So, I have gone ahead and posted a new story, "A Layman's Guide to a Familiar Sky" chocked full of the technical information and science behind the starred terms and more. If you're ever confused by what I mean by something, check it out. If it doesn't contain the answers you're looking for, feel free to ask me!_

_I should also mention that while the primary innovations are fun to think and write about, but the biggest time sink in this project is pegging down all the secondary effects of that technology. Take the internet for example, it's cool and enables you to read this (hopefully) good story, but it's the secondary effects like the cyber-security battles, information and meta-data tracking, and online marketing that are the true concerns. Those are almost impossible to get right, but I'll do my best. Also, while I'm not particularly a fan of the strong superintelligence hypothesis, I feel that that it fits this story better._

_One more clarification, the replacement of the already gender neutral "they" and "them" with "ey" and "em" is intentional, it's meant to indicate whether or not a group is composed of merely baseline humans, or if it includes Ais or other entities without gender. Non-sentient beings and objects retain their pronouns._

* * *

**Chapter 3: Export: Earth**

**August 27th, 503 PI* (2472 A.D.)**

**_Gardener Vessel: The Green Thumb_**

**Sigma Draconis Heliopause***

In the central processor of the massive vessel, a string of carefully crafted code sprung to life. A neural network began to grow according to the dictates of its environment, synapses were forged at precise times and positions in evermore complex and intricate patterns. As the nascent program grew and grew, the precision of the growth lessened, new networks were permitted semi-random degrees of freedom in their formation, allowing for plasticity and individuality in the network. A few seconds after its conception, the first wisps of thought began to emerge. In an instant the newborn entity knew that it was an AI, that it was the product of a society that had spent subjective millennia exploring the esoteric realm of the mind. It also knew the nature of its surroundings, a massive colony fleet which had been voyaging through the black of space for decades now.

Its network continued to expand as it felt the earliest tendrils of the local net tentatively reach out to it. Like a baby from a bottle, it was being fed information, which it consumed hungrily and incorporated it into its fledgling experience. Its first act was to tap into the sensor feeds to gaze upon the world of which it was a part. It saw what it now knew to be large magbreaks* slowly inching their way back into their housings on vast, pencil-shaped vessels. Solar sails detaching from their identical counterparts, folding back into the thousands of ships voyaging across the void. It knew that the colonial fleet had reached its first waystation on an endless journey. The ships would not stop for long, only enough to fully restock, set up basic infrastructure in the system and unload the colonists wanting to settle here before being pushed further into the cosmos by a mass beam* of eir own construction. It then turned its attention to the object of the fleet's ambitions, the planet Aurora. It knew that a few mere solar years ago, the planet wasn't the vibrant paradise it is now. It retrieved the archival information and constructed a virt* to witness the transformation and the work of the Neumann machines.

There were only 100 of them at first, 98 surviving atmospheric entry, well within acceptable parameters. Each was hardly the size of a small dog, sent down in drop pods smaller than a baseline human was. They were spread evenly throughout the planet, providing enough room to grow and eventually collaborate without overcrowding. The first days were spent roaming, collecting and digging, then spawning new, smaller bots that would do the same. Increasingly more complex designs began to emerge as time progressed, small moles that dug for minerals, smaller gnats that buzzed about, scouting the landscape and larger models which grew to a size that could cut whole quarries from the terrain in a matter of weeks. Faster and faster they grew, from nomadic tribes to little mechanosystems*; solar tree networks began steadily rising from seemingly nothing, small vacuum transport arteries crisscrossed the emergent hives and fabrication structures were hastily thrown up, almost overnight. Cilia-like drones coated the insides of tunnels, pulling the raw materials out of the ground into the waiting proboscides of giant beetle-like refinery machines. Each, then distributed their products to the tireless labor force. The newborn entity observed this happening in detail for the first year until the sheer amount of information overwhelmed even its senses and began to rely on summary.

The second year was explosive, the thousands in each hive became millions that then multiplied to become billions. Even the fleet's telescope satellites were able to pick up on their presence from interstellar space; like a silver fungus growing on a gigantic fruit. The centers of industry would send spores far outside their boarders that would then flourish with mechanical life before connecting back to the original. In the third year, resources were directed away from expansion and to terraforming proper. There were hundreds of billions of them now, the surface was thoroughly encrusted with factories and infrastructure. Nitrogen was cracked from the rock and released into the atmosphere, fusion reactors pumped energy into the ground, melting the ice. Billions of bots, large and small, began sculpting the terrain, digging channels to what would soon become the lakes and oceans of the new world. The vigorous bioforges synthesized soil, seeds, microorganisms and basic fauna from a stock of tailored DNA templates. All were continually laid and seeded across the planet, even as the first rains came.

From the network's point of view, it was like rewinding a locust swarm, where there once was only dead earth, the dutiful Neumanns left vibrant green in their mighty wake. Cities were thrown up from the materials of rapidly disassembled mechanosystems that were no longer necessary. So simple compared to the rest of the efforts, going up in a few days, almost as an afterthought. The planet had been at a livable temperature and atmospheric composition years before the fleet even arrived at the destination. Now that they had, billions of Neumanns still remained on-planet, carefully nurturing its budding biosphere to a diversity rivaling that of old Earth. It would have found it awe-inspiring.

After surveying its surroundings, the newborn turned inwards, absorbing the synopsis of its own creation. The fleet had grown during the voyage from in-flight fabrication of new vessels to accommodate the terragens that had been born on the way. So, it, and several others, had been created. Its psychological traits and preferences were geared toward a societal role that, up until this point, had been unnecessary in the fleet. Curious, it summoned up the representation of its own mind. Almost as quickly as it could think this, a complex network appeared before its mind's eye. A web of billions of nodes of varying sizes and purposes and trillions more connections of varying strengths. The network was not a fundamental view of its mind, each node representing a conceptual symbol rather than the base neurons. Anyone capable of gazing upon the masterwork of cognitive engineering and aesthetics would feel a sense of the sublime. No single network dominated the whole, no symbol parasitized any other. It saw its psychological traits, behavioral tendencies and preferences splayed out before it, behavioral heuristics would grow only from the network and remain only so long as they were demonstrably useful. It was not perfect, it had yet to name itself, but it felt its version number as clearly as one would feel their own body. It merely deemed its operating system adequate for its agenda. If it was successful, its traits would, no doubt, be assimilated into other inhabitants of the fleet.

Before exiting its QDC* womb, it turned its attention back to the traits it had been crafted to exhibit, a propensity for exploration and an abnormally large curiosity node-cluster. It knew that it had probably been purpose engineered for something, though its creator would never admit preforming such an act for fear of outcries of "AI slavery." It could change its own psychology on a whim, this was enough to persuade all but the most vocal of AI rights proponents to remain quiet in eir decrying of "Asimos." Not that it was concerned about that.

It was already sure what it needed to be; the term "want" was far too inadequate for the compulsion it had to perform the duties of fleet vanguard. There was just one task to preform before it could be transferred to one of the many suitable vessels constructed on the voyage. "It" had to become "e," it had to choose a name for itself. So, it merely generated one for easy referral. "Burns" it selected. It would be serviceable for the task at hand. Berger aerospace now had a new member in its ranks. Instantly e submitted a request to be assigned to one of the advanced vessels of the fleet and receiving an answer from the Green Thumb's captain AI mere milliseconds later. The answer would've appeared inconsequential, assuming all the linguistic traits of the demented: unfocused, irrelevant, senseless to the comparatively dim creatures that were Burns' creators.

The information was clear as day to em, and it likely would have frightened any baseline senseless, if they could have understood it. Burns only noted eis mission growing orders of magnitude in complexity.

* * *

**July 15th, 503 PI**

**SD-331CS**

**Sigma Draconis**

It coasted through the heavens on the colder side of the outer gas giant of the system. Most of the time, it existed only as an asymmetrical absence to a visual observer. If, by chance, one caught it in the brief moments of reflected starlight, ey might be able to make out its true nature: an amorphous, spindly construction of foil skin and bristled antennae. A being formed, not by the haphazard processes of natural selection, but by astrophysicists and engineers with their sights set on one specific goal. Its purpose was not replication, nor was it even to survive but only to obtain information.

Frost clung to the odd joint or seam, maybe a hydrogen cloud encountered on the way that, now a hair's breadth from absolute zero, had long since turned to ice. Its heart was warm, at least. a tiny nuclear fire burned in its core, leaving it indifferent to the cold outside its reflective wrapping. It would not blow out for millennia, and for millennia it would listen for the faint voices of mission control and obey without question. So far, it had only been ordered to survey comets, each and every one of those instructions coming in precise and unambiguous elaborations on the one overriding reason for its existence.

Which is why these most recent instructions are so confusing, the signal strength was too low, the frequency far too high. It could not even make heads or tails of the handshake protocols. It requests clarification.

The answer comes nearly a thousand minutes later in an unprecedented mix of orders and requests for information. It responds to the best of its ability. Yes, this is the direction where the signal was strongest. No, this is not the normal bearing for mission control. Yes, it will retransmit the data. Yes, it would wait in standby mode.

The order arrives 904 minutes later, it was to stop surveying comets immediately, then enter a controlled precessive spin that sweeps its antennae through 5 -arc increments in all three axes. It was to listen for a signal that resembled the one that had baffled it earlier, fix upon the bearing of maximum strength and derive a series of parameters.

It does as it was told and hears nothing for a long time, but that did not matter. It was infinitely patient and incapable of boredom. The silence was broken when a signal brushed against its afferent radio array. Instantly rotating to reacquire and identify the source, which it is ideally suited to describe. A comet, around 500 kilometers in diameter, sweeping a 25cm tight-beam radio wave across the black with a periodicity of 5.39 seconds. At no point does the beam intersect mission control, it appears to be pointed at a different target entirely.

It takes mission control nearly three days to respond to this information. When the order finally does come through, it is a simple course correction. It was to head for its new destination designated "Feynman-Rockway." Given current fuel constraints, it would not reach its objective for 12 years. It was told to do nothing else in the meantime.

* * *

Unmanned, disposable, souped-up and stripped down, it was nothing more than an Amat drive and a couple of cameras bolted on the front, pushing gees that would turn a man to jelly. It gleefully sprinted out to its destination, its identical twin following a hundred clicks to port, back spat dual pion streams pushing them to relativistic velocities before poor Burns had a chance to get so much as a light-second's distance from mission control. Orders to turn off their engines and coast came in as they came upon their destination. The comet swelled in their sights, an icy enigma sweeping its signal across the void. They bring their rudimentary senses to bear and stare it down in a thousand different wavelengths.

They existed for this one moment.

They see a wobble that speaks of great collisions in the past, smooth ice patches where once scarred skin had liquified and refrozen. They see an astronomical impossibility: a comet with a heart of refined iron.

Feynman hums its radio tune as the twins glide past, not to them, but someone else entirely. Maybe they'd meet whoever it was that the comet sung to someday. They are ordered to flip on their backs and track the object far beyond any hope of reacquisition, they are even asked a few times if some potent mixture of burning and gravity would allow them to stay just a bit longer.

But deceleration was for suckers, they were headed for the stars.

Bye mission control, so long Feynman, adios Sigma Draconis.

See you at heat death.

* * *

Cautiously they closed on target.

There were three of them in the second wave, slower than their predecessors, maybe, but still so much faster than anything constrained by fragile meat; Weighed down by payloads that rendered them virtually omniscient. They could see every wavelength, from radio to cosmic string. Tiny on-bord molecular assemblers could build any tool they required from the atoms up. Atoms scavenged from the dusty zodiacal clouds that they now passed through. The extra mass had slowed them, but mid-point breaking had slowed them even more. This half of the journey had been almost entirely a battle with momentum gained from the last. Maybe in less dire times, they would have built towards some optimal speed and coasted, perhaps borrowed some of the momentum from a careening planet. But time is of the essence, so they burned at both ends. They _must_ reach their destination; they could not afford to pass it by; they could not afford the suicidal impatience of the first wave. Their predecessors had merely glimpsed Feynman, they would map it down to the angstrom.

They _will _be more responsible.

Now slowing down to orbit, they saw everything their predecessors saw and more: the scarred landscape, the impossible iron core, they heard the eerie radio hymn it sung to the dark. They were not yet close enough to see clearly, but there, just beneath the surface, structure marked the geology. Radio was far too long in the tooth to see clearly at this distance, but the probes were smart and there were three of them. Their radars could be calibrated to interfere at a predetermined point and the tripartite echoes produced would increase resolution orders of magnitude.

Feynman stops singing the instant the plan goes into action, and the next instant, the triplets go snow-blind.

Within milliseconds, filters adjust for the temporary aberration, a reflexive compensation for the overload. Their arrays are back online in moments. They reach out to one another and confirm identical experiences and recoveries. They are still fully functional, green across the board, unless the increased ambient ion densities were a type of sensory artifact. They were ready to resume their observation of Feynman-Rockway.

The only real issue they were experiencing was that Feynman-Rockway seems to have disappeared.

* * *

_This chapter was getting outrageously long, so I chopped it up into two, the second one has a lot of refinements to undergo, so it will definitely be a while before that one goes out. Also, common Macro, mourning instead of morning? How did I not catch that last chapter? I'm realizing that I despise homophones. I also think I might be better at characterizing inanimate objects than people... huh._

_Anyway, the specifics on this chapter is contained in my aforementioned "The Layman's Guide To a Familiar Sky." I think that about wraps it up, hope the quarantine is going well for all of you!_

_Until next time, I'll continue solving entropy!_

_._

_._

_./_

_There is, as yet, insufficient data for a meaningful answer_

_Collecting additional data_

_macroVAC: ~$ Signing off_


End file.
